[ACTION] FRC Town Hall, fall recording

NE FIRST hosted our fall FRC Town Hall on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, from 7–8 p.m.!

NE FRC Town Hall Sept 2025.pdf

Download PDF • 2.60MB

SLIDE NOTES

District Leadership: what we focus on

• Michael: partnership leveraging, high-level directing

• Scott: event planning, fire extinguishing

• Sam: info-sharing, branding, fundraising

FIRST Senior Mentors

• Maine: Jamee Luce

• New Hampshire: Ken St. Hilaire

• Vermont: Scott McCalla

• Massachusetts: Katie Bonner

• Connecticut: Stacey Hilton

State of the District, overview from Michael

FRC REBUILT Overview

• New England has 12 district events over 5 weeks

  • Two events are Thursday–Saturday (URI & UVM)

  • Weeks 2 & 4 have 3 events, the rest have 2 events

• Week 6 has no events!

• District Championship will host 100 teams in 2 divisions at The Big E

  • DCMP / FPENE division naming suggestions

Schedule Notes

• Daylight Savings Time:

  • Starts Sunday, March 8 (Week 1)

  • Keep an eye on these events’ schedules

• A number of events are scheduled during religious holidays:

  • Ramadan: all competitions prior to sundown on Wednesday, March 18 (Weeks 1 / 2)

  • Eid al-Fitr: evening of Thursday, March 19 – Friday, March 20 (Week 3)

  • Pesach (Passover): Thursday, April 2 – Sunday, April 5 (Week 5)

  • Good Friday and Easter Sunday: Friday, April 3 & Sunday, April 5 (Week 5)

• 420 total event plays

  • 9 events currently have 36-team capacity

  • 3 events currently have 32-team capacity

  • events will not exceed 36 teams until all have 28 

  • during event selection process, 4 slots per event will be held for rookies and teams

• No free third plays are anticipated for this season

FIRST's Important Dates

• Event preferencing (noon–noon)

  • Round 1: September 25–October 2, 2025

  • Round 2: October 16–23, 2025

  • Extra events: October 30, 2025

• Volunteer registration opens

  • October 31, 2025

• Team payment deadline

  • November 18, 2025

  • Following this, FIRST Championship allocations released

    • New England's percentage of the total FRC teams secured in the world determine this number

    • 2025 = 31 slots, may have missed out on 1 or 2 slots because 185 / 191 teams were secured by the deadline in 2024

• Kickoff

  • January 10, 2026

Where to find (New England specific) info!

• Team announcements: nefirst.org/teams 

• Mentor Memos: 

  • subscribe at nefirst.org/subscribe 

  • latest: nefirst.org/so/50PZtX-qC

• Mentor Slack: invitation to join

  • (many channels, including #frc-announcements for cross-posting all of the above)

• Events: nefirst.org/calendar

  • nefirst.org/district-events, includes off-seasons

  • nefirst.org/community-calendar, invite communitycal@nefirst.org to be added

• Town Hall recordings: YouTube

• Event webpages: nefirst.org/frc-events

  • (2026 will be created when volunteer express QR codes are available)

• Socials: Instagram / Facebook

Grant notes

• NASA Grant available this year, application open now

  • Available to Rookies and Second-Year Teams that received a 2025 NASA Grant

  • Due September 30

• Other opportunities: 

  • firstinspires.org/robotics/team-grants 

  • Some become available on/after October 1

• Hardship grants

  • Will be posted in November, about a week prior to the payment deadline

• Travel grants for FIRST Championship

  • NE FIRST will share info as the season progresses

Thank you to all who attended or watched the recording!